In today's communication world, users of communication services tend to have multiple devices where they can download and view their content, handle voice and video calls, play games etc. The content itself very often comprises different parallel streams. For example an IMS call, with voice and video running at the same time. In such an exemplary case the user of a device (e.g. a smartphone) where an IMS video call is running may have the wish to transfer this call to another device which may be more appropriate for handling the call, e.g. another smartphone with a bigger screen. That would require that there is a way to transfer the ongoing session without needing to interrupt it and re-establish it from the new device. An inter-connection of the two devices would be necessary. These devices can be wired but in the majority of the cases they are wireless.
There are various ways to inter-connect wireless devices. Different wireless protocols have been standardized like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Accordingly there are various solutions on how to achieve inter-connection of these devices. To simplify the task of inter-connecting wireless devices automated connection setup methods have been proposed that are triggered by proximity of such devices. In patent applications WO2011017007 and WO2011141618 such concepts are described. Using such concepts it becomes possible e.g. to transfer a service or an ongoing session between two wireless devices.
US Patent 20110065383 describes a way of how to transfer an online service and related user data from one device or user equipment to another using near field communication. The first device is initiating the communication based on proximity detection of the target device. The near field communication is used to coordinate the transfer of information related to the online service by establishing a wireless communication link between the two entities where they exchange credentials and potentially also transfer the required information.
The problem of the above solutions which are built on device-to-device user plane communication over the wireless link is that it results in high link utilization. Also the load on the central processing unit of the source device (i.e. device where the session is initially established) remains high. That may result in fast battery drain. Also, it is not obvious that content destined to a certain device is optimal for another device. For example, if a smarphone transfers a video session to a television set, the stream originally destined for a low resolution screen would yield insufficient quality on the bigger screen of the television.
All cases discussed before imply an intelligent target device (i.e. a device to which an ongoing session is supposed to be transferred) which is capable to establish a wireless connection towards the source device, authenticate itself and transfer different information in a secure way. This may provide limited applicability and is in many cases unnecessary since the target devices may just simply be simple displays or already having standardized control capabilities towards the communication network (e.g. IMS-capable smartphones).